Sonia Gandhi led Congress to Catastrophe, Rahul Gandhi merely presided over the ruins.
Lot of political obituaries are being written about Congress and its current president Rahul Gandhi. All of them a valid critique of his leadership or lack of it. Congress has been down and out before but never has its ideology been so comprehensively rejected and never before has a member of Nehru-Gandhi dynasty been so uniformly ridiculed for lack of talent and political acumen.
Indira Gandhi was defeated in 1977 elections; in fact, she too lost her pocket borough of Rai Bareilly to Raj Narain by a margin of almost 50,000 votes. Yet no one believed Indira had fallen off the political chessboard permanently. It was a matter of time before she bounced back. That is because the country had seen her political acumen and knew she had the talent to rise from the ashes. Indira had many flaws but ineptness wasn’t one of them.
Rajiv Gandhi too squandered his enormous mandate and was voted out. Even though he lacked his mother’s charisma and connect with people and had a taint of humongous corruption scam, yet in 1991, everyone knew he would be back in power. Had he not been tragically assassinated by LTTE, most analysts believed he would have been able to steer his party towards victory. Again, Rajiv Gandhi had numerous flaws, yet he had some basic competence to win some votes for his party.
Rahul Gandhi inspires no one to believe he can ever bounce back or restore Congress party to its erstwhile glory. Worse, he is not even a vote catcher unlike other members of his family. In fact, 52 seats that Congress won are despite him and not because of him. In a decade and a half of his political career, Rahul can hardly boast of any significant achievement. In the era of WhatsApp memes and ruthless trolling, Rahul Gandhi’s only accomplishment is that he is a meme generator.
Having said all that, I think it is a bit harsh to lay all the blame of ruin of Congress at Rahul’s doorstep. The real person who drove Congress to its ideological bankruptcy and pushed the grand old party to its catastrophic end is Sonia Gandhi. This may seem absurd to some because Sonia has been the most successful Congress President ever. Before she handed over the reigns to her son, she ruled the party with iron fist. She allowed no dissent nor did she face any rebellion. She had absolutely no rivals in her entire tenure and Congress became a family concern under her watch. Yet it was under her watch, Congress party was systematically finished.
Before Sonia era, Congress party and Nehru-Gandhi family had a symbiotic relationship. Both gained from each other. However, under Sonia Gandhi, Congress Party became a vehicle for her family’s greed and was a one-way relationship with Congress party gaining nothing and ultimately becoming hollow under her leadership.
It is true that 2004–2014 saw glorious years of UPA 1 and 2. Sonia Gandhi was the de-facto Prime Minister of the country and Congress party was under her tight control. Ironically, when Sonia was at her strongest, Congress party was getting hollowed out with no traces of Nehru Congress, Indira Congress or even Rajiv Congress left in it. Sonia Congress became an oasis for all jhola wala NGOs who had their own axe to grind in keeping India bogged down by its fault lines. Manmohan Singh was the Prime Minister but power solely rested at 10, Janpath. Files from PMO were carried back and forth to 10, Janpath by senior bureaucrats. Manmohan Singh had the chair; Sonia occupied the throne the chair rested on.
Policy Paralysis was a phrase that we often heard those days, referring to completely inept PMO that had to take orders from Super PM in 10, Janpath. Guided by discredited Economists, Sonia forced Sonianomics on the country which was a further left turn of India’s economy that brought much economic distress.
Sonia brought in controversial Right to Education act, that has since been a land mine and has alienated Hindus because they feel they are discriminated against. This land mine of RTE is so vicious that even subsequent Modi Government hasn’t been able to defang it yet. It was during Sonia era, Manmohan Singh declared minorities have the first right on nation’s resources which left majority Hindu community huffing and puffing. To add salt to the injury, Sonia proposed communal violence bill which if passed would have ensured that in any brawl, any unrest, the first needle of suspicion automatically falls on Hindus. Thankfully, Communal Violence Bill was dropped but not before it caused anxiety and tremendous bad blood between the communities. If hindus no longer vote for Congress, it is Sonia Gandhi who drove them away.
It was under Sonia’s leadership that the tag of ‘anti-national’ came to be associated with Congress. One must ask why. Indira was an extremely polarizing figure and so was Rajiv yet no one called their governments anti national. What did Sonia do that got the tag of anti-national permanently attached to the Congress? Perhaps it was Sonia’s ‘tears’ for terrorists killed in Batla encounter or it was Manmohan Singh’s inaction after 26/11, the tag stuck and Rahul by expressing solidarity with those who facilitated seditious sloganeering in JNU campus, made the tag seem appropriate for his party.
While the commentators were busy singing paeans to Sonia Gandhi, no one noticed how she strangulated the party from within. By allowing no intra party democracy, she ensured her son had no challengers. When there is no competition, there can be no growth. So, Rahul Gandhi acquired the high chair only because he was Sonia’s son. He had not been tested, nor was he asked to assume any responsibility. Compare this to how Narendra Modi fought his way up in BJP, deftly dismantling previously held power equations. This training within the party is necessary if you want to acquire the political acumen to govern the country. Rahul had no such training nor desire.
Rahul ran a terrible campaign against Narendra Modi because he did not seize the narrative even for a day. He couldn’t because he has been trained in Sonia school of Politics where entitlement reigns supreme and you fight for nothing. Chowkidar chor hai was a ludicrous campaign because not even Modi’s worst critics believe he is a thief. Rafale opened more can of worms for Rahul and his family instead of Modi. Rahul lied through the teeth about Anil Ambani and some fictitious 30, 000 crore contract to him. All lies and more lies. Rahul did not even know how to tackle Modi Tsunami because his mother had ensured that he faces no challenge within Congress party that would have prepared him. Rahul was destroyed by Modi wave and he is responsible for his failure but he could have only run away from it not faced it. His mother had left him with a hollow party that could barely take on the challenge.
It was Sonia Gandhi who actually destroyed Congress, Rahul is now left to pick the debris.
